It's not as simple as just looking at the ROI of an individual bailout; what if the crisis itself only happened at the level it did because of the expectation of the bailout in the first place?

> Notably, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), tasked by Congress with investigating the causes of the financial crisis, cited moral hazard as a component of the crisis, arguing that many factors, including deregulation in the derivatives market in 2000, reduced federal oversight, and the potential for government bailout of "too big to fail" institutions all played a role in increasing moral hazard in the years leading up to the collapse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard#Connection_to_the...

If we universally euthanize people once they reach a certain age and fail to pass certain capability tests, we'd also very likely see an ROI as the costs of maintaining the elderly and their increasing consumption could be put to more productive uses in the economy.

Still... something strikes me as just... well... morally wrong about that.

> and in the global economic catastrophe it prevented.

Didnt the US govt cause the crisis by refusing to regulate derivatives because their donors didnt want it to be regulated.

The housing bailout also arguably worked extraordinarily well at preventing a much greater, prolonged loss / depression of value in real-estate. The largest bailout in world history went to US homeowners via the Fed de facto purchasing garbage mortgages to pull them off the market.

Were the normal people who lost everything ever bailed out?

[dead]